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If I somehow twisted the arm of a politician to stand up in front of microphones or on the House floor to say that elephants are really Martians, the media would find some way to turn that into a headline which said "Are Elephants Martians? Experts Weigh In." The experts would then parade across the screen, but because the Martian-Elephant Liberty Think Tank (MELTT) already had white papers written which proved that Martians do indeed exist and fuzzy images seem to indicate there might be some resemblance to elephants, that expert would also take his seat at the pundits' table and so it would come to pass that we all be asked to accept as fact that it is not entirely insane to believe that elephants are Martians.

Next, they would commission a poll to see how people feel about elephants being Martians so they could get some experts to come on television and tell you why they're Martians.

Oh, the Sacred Polls, how we do worship them.

Just as opinions are placed into the mainstream via the highest, holiest institutions of thought -- think tanks -- so too are those opinions hardened by the pollsters, who in some cases, admit they use their data-gathering efforts to shape ideas. Instead of asking questions which then elicit responses, they take data and form a narrative, which is then pushed along by the linguists and thinkers, while some pollsters then convert the poll itself into the narrative.

This is how it works. Don't believe me? I swear to you this headline actually exists on a mainstream newspaper website: A third of Earthlings believe in UFOs, would befriend aliens.

Not only does it exist on that major website, it was a trending item on Memeorandum's Political News Page. No lie, and look where it is:

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Fire all the janitors and make poor kids clean their schools? Zap Korea with an airborne super laser that's never worked during testing? Ignore global warming and plan to re-engineer the entire planet with untested technology instead?

People like Maureen Dowd have been having fun with Newt Gingrich's wackier ideas lately. But despite their snarky comments - and the fact that some of Gingrich's ideas truly are bizarre - they're missing something important and making a fundamental mistake.

They're seriously underestimating both Gingrich and the "Insane Idea Industry" he represents.

The Shock of the Newt

Gingrich may sound like the mad-inventor villain from a 1930's movie serial. But his eccentric concepts and pseudo-intellectual logorrhea aren't just the product of his own eccentricities. They're the natural flowering of a fifty-year trend in corporate conservatism which serves the agenda of the ultra-powerful in some very important ways.

Call him Dr. Strange. But Newt's not some Random Idea Generator who spews out whatever crazy notion his id generates out of half-digested Popular Science blog posts. He's merely the latest in a long line of conservative "thinkers" who play a vital role for Corporate America: They generate an ongoing barrage of radical ideas that, slowly but surely, help to undermine our country's shared social vision.

What's next: Ending Medicare by putting seniors in a post-hypnotic trance state so they think they're not dying from inadequate medical care? A flock of flying squirrels to deliver the mail? Invisible robot St. Bernards instead of ambulances?

No idea is too zany to be considered - as long as it serves The Agenda.

The Crazier the Better

Think of Gingrich as the secret love child of Milton Friedman and Howard Stern. Or of nuclear-war advocate Herman Kahn and Marilyn Manson. Newt's brand of conservative "idea generation" is designed, first and foremost, to get lots of attention - which it has - and to make the values we've held for generations seem stale, rigid, and somehow less exciting than the futuristic corporate oligarchy of tomorrow.

Shock value is just as important as the ideas themselves. In fact, it's more important. The Newt conservatives are conducting an intellectual guerrilla operation against deeply held values of the common good. Most of the ideas aren't intended to be practical. They're like performance art, but of a kind that's designed to reinforce the suggestion that our old way of life is failing.

Newt is merely the latest and most conspicuous example of this Insane Idea Factory in action. There's plenty more where he came from.

And the crazier the idea, the better. There are no rules and no boundaries, even those of common decency. Firing janitors and making poor kids clean the schools instead? That's creative thinking! Ending Social Security and putting the financial security of a nation's elderly at risk? That's innovation! These liberals won't think outside the box!

For all their carping about 'liberal dreamers,' there are no more impractical and wild-eyed dreamers on the planet than Gingrich and his fellow Conservative Utopians. They love coming up with the kinds of ideas that college students used to have in the sixties when they were getting high in their dorm rooms. The difference is that the college students were straight again in the morning.

But in the halls of conservative think tanks, the lava lamps never stop burning.

The Unthinkable

Herman Kahn wrote a book called Thinking the Unthinkable in which he argued that the US could attack the Soviet Union and start a nuclear war and "win." That laid the foundation for decades more of a pointless and costly arms race, and spawned a whole industry of intellectual agents provocateurs whose role was to challenge conventional thinking with "rule-breaking" brilliance - even when , especially when, the conventional thinking was right.

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John Nagl and Nathaniel Fick, both of the Center for a New American Security, had an op-ed in last Sunday's NY Times. They're both former military officers, now big think-tank executives, and they decided to report on the Great Progress our armed forces are making in Afghanistan. Mind you, the Afghan government still sucks and the Afghan security forces are still ineffective, but our boys are aces!

One of us, Nathaniel, recently flew into Camp Leatherneck in a C-130 transport plane, which had to steer clear of fighter bombers stacked for tens of thousands of feet above the Sangin District of Helmand Province, in southwestern Afghanistan. Singly and in pairs, the jets swooped low to drop their bombs in support of Marine units advancing north through the Helmand River Valley.

Half of the violence in Afghanistan takes place in only 9 of its nearly 400 districts, with Sangin ranking among the very worst. Slowly but surely, even in Sangin, the Taliban are being driven from their sanctuaries as the coalition focuses on protecting the Afghan people in key population centers and hubs of economic activity, and along the roads that connect them. Once these areas are cleared, it will be possible to hold them with Afghan troops and a few American advisers — allowing the United States to thin its deployments over time.

A significant shift of high-tech intelligence resources from Iraq to Afghanistan, initiated by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former top commander, is also having benefits. The coalition led by the United States and NATO has been able to capture or kill far more Taliban leaders in nighttime raids than was possible in the past.

The United States certainly can’t kill its way to victory, as it learned in Vietnam and Iraq, but it can put enough pressure on many Taliban fighters to encourage them to switch their allegiance, depriving the enemy of support and giving the coalition more sources of useful intelligence.

Ahh... if you have jets dropping bombs on Taliban positions and had to surge US forces to 100,000 troops because NATO didn't want to grow its presence and Afghan forces aren't capable, you ARE in fact trying to kill your way to victory. I'm not going to dissect this op-ed, I'll refer you to Joshua Foust for that analysis, but I'll tell you what discouraged me about this pollyannish article. First, the two authors want us to be encouraged that after more than nine years of fierce combat in Afghanistan, we might - just might - be able to get down to 25,000 combat forces four years from now. If we're lucky and Karzai leaves office and a competent Afghan government takes his place.

Second, they use the opportunity to suggest that the counterinsurgency tactics are responsible for a shift in momentum that will allow the "Long War" to get shorter. There's been nothing new that I've seen that suggests anything other than bone-grinding attrition has been the overwhelming tactic here. As much as they cheer on the military operators, and I am sure that our military operators are skilled and efficient killers, the Taliban isn't giving up and the Afghan population isn't throwing its trust behind Karzai. It's a slog, an attrition-based battle with no end game. As TwS points out, "Tactical success shouldn’t be used as a predictor of strategic success."

But here's the bottom line. Let's assume Nagl and Fick are right, that everything clicks, that we're able to drop US combat presence in Afghanistan to 25,000 by 2014. So what? What exactly have we gained? What strategic interest has been achieved? So we cleared out one country of AQ (which, oh by the way, they left  years ago and operate out of Pakistan now - and Yemen and Somalia and other countries...). It's not as if Afghanistan is going to be a valued partner in the War on Terror. No, that country is going to patch its wounds and hope that it can achieve a living condition similar to Pakistan - if it tries real hard for about twenty years while sucking down billions of dollars in American financial aid. Great stuff.

But hey, I suppose Nagl and Fick are just supporting SecDef Gate's view on life, as misguided as that point of view is.

LTG (ret) Dave Barno and Andrew Exum recently released a CNAS report titled "Responsible Transition: Securing U.S. Interests in Afghanistan Beyond 2011." In this report, the two men outline how the US government should move from a heavy counterinsurgency operation that is led by the US military to a counterterrorism operation that supports an Afghan-led counterinsurgency operation in 2014. I'm not going to get into the report itself, other to say that I'm really not that impressed (go read Gulliver's two cents), and that I'll probably lean toward Finel's and Cohen's take. There are few options left to the United States other than to draw down and let the Afghans take over security operations, unless there is a desire by the Repub politicians to dramatically increase US forces and funding in that conflict (since I have no faith in the Dems doing anything positive or negative here).

Interestingly, Mr. Exum has returned from the faraway land of Afghanistan lately and brings back good news and bad news. The good news is that our military intel services are crackerjacks and doing great things. Counterinsurgency is going just swell at the tactical levels, at least. And the special forces guys are working well with the general purpose forces. Always a good thing.

The bad news is that we still don't have an Afghani government that can rule the provinces with any degree of confidence and the Pakistani government still lets the Taliban do pretty much whatever they want. Our government doesn't really focus on this aspect of Afghani "governance", and we're probably going to lose international support as well as that of the Afghani government. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

There was this story about how Karzai appointed a buddy for a governance position, but in 2005, the British military found that he had a little 9-ton heroin problem in his basement. He's gone, but very vocal about how he was framed. And now Karzai thinks the US government is the enemy, not his friend (more mad ranting for public consumption?). There's no indication that Pakistan is addressing its inherent challenges with the Taliban.

I still don't see why anyone would think that there are serious national security interests in Afghanistan, now that al Qaeda is in Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and probably Germany. Here's the thing about non-state actors - they don't rely on one state to thrive. They're funny like that. But Very Serious People in Washington DC will disagree and insist we continue spending more than a hundred billion a year on this operation.

My final question. So how long after 2014 will the US government be pouring billions into Afghanistan's drug lords convoy protection Dubai accounts economy? Is this another $3 billion a year investment like Egypt, Pakistan, and Israel? How many failed states are we going to keep on life support using US billions?

The top ten think tank directors make a between $450,000 and nearly $1 million per year. Conservative think tanks seem to pay better, probably because they're funded with a lot of money from the Billionaire Boys' Club.

I wonder how I can get one of those jobs. I can think. I spend all day thinking. Maybe that's the problem.

As John Amato wrote back in March, Liberty Central is the right wing "civic organization" headed up by Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Clarence Thomas. And, as John wrote back then, the idea of the wife of a Supreme Court Justice heading up a Tea Party site is a little on the edge of the ethical line, don't you think? Even in March, it smelled hinky:

I'm sorry, this looks bad for a lot for reasons and to say that they rarely discuss court matters seems absurd to anyone that has had a long term relationship or have been married. And the fact that she's going to take cash from corporations is a big deal. Her marriage to a Supreme Court judge would be very appealing to donors.

Yes, it does look bad and the Federal disclosure reports (form 990) don't make it look much better. 2009: Two donors only. One for $50,000 and one for $500,000.00.

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Well, here's a little treasure (PDF) from the Pacific Research Institute (aka right wing hatchery of the west). Sarah Palin has written the foreward for their "Tort Liability Index", where she brags about how "reformed" Alaska's tort system is.

Alaska has the second-lowest monetary tort payouts of any state, controlling for the size of each state’s economy. Our tort costs are particularly low for businesses—another reason for entrepreneurs to locate here. We also have some of the lowest medical liability costs in the country. We appreciate doctors in Alaska and welcome them with open arms, not abusive lawsuits.

Imagine that. If the Deepwater Horizon were to have sunk off the coast of Alaska after destroying all the wildlife in the area, they could've gotten off EASY. Because Sarah Palin was all about watchin' out for the doctor and entrepreneur.

I wonder if I could sue for injuries suffered from slamming my head on the desk repeatedly.

Given these sweeping benefits, all states would do well to follow Alaska’s example and enact legal reforms that eliminate lawsuit abuse. The state motto, after all, is “North to the Future.”

It would be irresponsible of me to simply rant about the idiocy of Sarah Palin writing any kind of foreward for any kind of think tank publication without at least looking at this wonderful tort liability climate in Alaska and sharing that information. So I went looking, and what I found is, well...interesting. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer)

• Life has a price - If you die in Alaska as the result of someone else's negligence, the most you are worth is $400,000 or $8,000 times your life expectancy. Period.
• Grievous injury has a price too - If you are injured or disfigured and the injury/disfigurement is permanent, the maximum you're worth is $1,000,000 or $25,000 x life expectancy.
• Punishment has its limits, too - If it is found that you have been wronged intentionally, punitive damages may be part of the verdict. Those limits range from a $500,000 maximum for an individual injury to $7,000,000 for intentionally inflicted financial injury (e.g. embezzlement, securities fraud, etc). However, if the issue is unlawful employment practices, the cap drops drastically to a maximum of $200,000 for small employers and $500,000 for employers with more than 500 employees.

Now look at those caps, and think about the 11 employees of BP killed on the Deepwater Horizon and ask yourself whether or not tort reform is such a good thing.

Palin's little foreward and endorsement of these practices just cements her as a straight-up Republican. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

Oh, and if anyone sees evidence of actual thought going on in the "think tanks", let me know, okay?

(h/t The Daily Dish)

SHORTER Alan Kuperman: "Well, diplomacy has completely failed to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, so now it's just a question of whether Israel or the United States hits Iran first. And since we can do 'shock and awe' better than the Israelis, let's get to it."

You have to wonder about the sanity of a person who, after receiving a PhD in Political Science from MIT and has directed the Strauss Center's Nuclear Proliferation Prevention program for more than a year, is advocating bombing Iran's nuclear energy infrastructure as an approach to enforcing nonproliferation.

Seriously, dude. Resign now. You clearly are out of touch with reality (although nothing says "serious analyst" like that soul patch). And shame on the NY Times for printing an op-ed that belongs more in the Wall Street Journal or Washington Times.

UPDATE: Joe Palermo spells it out at Huff Po.

Greenwald discusses his new book. We have nothing comparable to the right wing noise machine that gets their books out and promotes them endlessly. Heck, the think tanks buy them by the boat loads just to give them away as promotions. How many times have you seen the "Conservative Book Club" promotion of five books for a dollar? Then the Mark Levins' of the world are billed as a "best selling" author. We really need to support our new writers as they emerge.
Please consider pre-ordering Glenn's book.

The Kool Aid Stand

via - suggested by Avedon

excerpt: read the full post for details

...Please, look at what the righties are saying. Then look at what the lefties are saying. Notice the difference in the quality of the arguments. Lefties write long posts full of data and figures. Righties link to the columnists they want to agree with, then say yeah, see? What he says. Democrats stink.